


Spirited

by Mendeia



Category: Secondhand Lions (2003)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Humor, Oneshot Flashbacks, Spoilers!, The Human Spectrum of Emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-25
Updated: 2010-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 01:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 11,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short one-shots spanning the lives of Garth and Hub McCann and the legacy they left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oldest: The brothers take care of each other

**Author's Note:**

> Secondhand Lions is one of my favorite movies of all time, and a while back I started writing short one-shots for it when I needed to take a break from my regular fandoms. They took all shapes and sizes, from vignette to just conversation, and they spanned the lives of the McCann brothers from their initial adventures in the French Foreign Legion to the fateful day at the end of the movie. I've decided to start posting them in chronological order as I can, just to get this stuff out there. The story is too awesome to not honor with fic.
> 
> I don't own the characters referenced here below, nor do I receive any profit from their use – I am solely paying my respects to a beautiful movie and some kick-ass adventures.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was a common mistake. After all, anyone who looked at the McCann brothers often saw exactly what they expected to see, things the brothers wanted them to see. Hub, strong and confident, every inch a man of honor, a warrior in any era, a defender of the helpless with a soul of fire. Garth, loyal, devoted, more thinker than doer, always one step behind his brother and yet evenly matched in courage and fortitude, if perhaps lacking in physical prowess or ambition. Hub, leader and fighter, with Garth as his second and side-kick. It was a well-crafted image indeed.

Very few saw through to Hub's near-constant worry for his brother, concern that he had gotten them into a scrape that, this time, would mean the end of them. For under the mantle of valor, Hub's heart ran deep and strong, and though strong as a mountain, his heart would have broken should any harm have ever come to Garth. He needed no one and nothing, and yet he needed Garth.

Very few saw through to Garth's own wisdom and honor, his serene acceptance of his place in life and the unfailing constancy of his heart, both in battle and simply at his brother's side. Garth knew he was not meant for the role of the hero, not like Hub was, and to be honest, he preferred it that way. Hub burned inside, an inferno of spirit, and nothing short of greatness would suit him; for Garth's part, he was just as happy to take Hub's fight on faith when called upon to do so, but not because of the fight itself. This he did for Hub.

Even fewer saw how they lived largely for each other. Hub would break the world to pieces for the sake of Garth, and Garth could draw upon reserves of strength that matched Hub's own if it ever came to that. They made it to each new, bloody dawn, endured it all, because they had to. Because Garth would not survive the battle without Hub, and Hub would not survive without Garth. But it was still Hub who came to the rescue in fine and dramatic fashion, blazing with glory before dozens of awed men. The rare times Garth was the rescuer were quiet, private, and never shared.

The McCann brothers took care of each other, both of them driven and ruled by Hub's honor and courage and sense of justice. Where Hub went, Garth would always be. When Garth was in trouble, Hub would be there to protect him. What Hub needed Garth would do, and when Garth was in need Hub would die to answer him. No one dared to doubt Hub's sincerity when he levied threats against any who would harm his brother. No one could forget that Garth would always be one step behind, ready for whatever Hub might need of him.

Hub and Garth – together, always, one soundly in front, the other subtly behind. So it was. The sky was blue, the wind was hot, and the brothers McCann were such.

And thus no one ever realized that Garth was actually two years older than Hub. It was a private joke, and a well-kept secret.


	2. First: Garth takes a life

It happened so fast. Hub had been rushing to fill in a hole in the line off to his left, promising Garth with blazing eyes that he'd be back before anything got through the barricade. But suddenly there were men everywhere, men charging and firing and looking to kill. The man to his left let out a terrible cry and fell backwards, and Garth found himself face-to-face with a German soldier.

"Garth!"

Hub's yell could be heard from far off, too far off, and there was anger, but also fear in it. Garth didn't have the time to look and see what his brother was doing, or what frightened him. He was too busy looking down the wrong end of a rifle. The German wasn't even looking at him – he seemed to be crossing things off on a list in his mind, already moving onto the next. And Garth's life was about to be crossed out.

BANG.

First there was pain. Then Garth realized that the pain, though acute, didn't feel bad enough to mean he was dead. He cautiously took stock of the situation. Well, he was alive – that was the main thing. He was leaning against the wall that had been his cover before they'd been overrun. And his cheek felt like it was on fire. But nothing else seemed to be wrong. And then he looked. And it was wrong, very wrong.

The German lay curled on the ground, clutching his stomach and gagging. Blood poured and spurted, and Garth's boots were red with it. In his hand was his pistol, and he could still feel the numbness he associated with holding a gun when it went off. The recoil had struck him in the cheek when he fired instinctively. But he had no interest in himself – he could only watch his victim bleed. Then, the German gasped, wretched, and went silent.

"Garth! You all right?" Hub was beside him then, a saber in one hand and his own pistol in the other, his chin wet with blood from probably a broken nose. But his eyes were only for the brother before him. Garth's skin was pale and his eyes were wide and unseeing.

"I'm…I killed him."

They stood in silence, seemingly unaware of the battle that raged around them without touching them. They'd been conscripted four months prior, and the horrors of war were not new anymore. But still. Hub had dispatched enemies left and right from the first moment he stepped on the battlefield. Until this moment, Garth had never taken a life.

"Garth," Hub said, a little more gently now, using the voice he only ever allowed his brother to hear, "look at me." He carefully pulled the pistol from Garth's hand and tucked it in his own belt. "You're alive. Take a breath. You're alive."

Garth's eyes got wider still, and he looked at Hub as if he'd never seen him before. "I…I shot him!"

"Yes. You did. And you saved a lot of lives." Hub was twisting inside for what he could see in Garth's face. He'd promised to protect his less-wild brother, and here he'd let him get cornered, nearly killed! But worse was that Garth would never have learned to kill if not for him – it was Hub's fault his brother had to learn to live with death now. But the very least he could do was make that living bearable.

"What…what do you mean?" Garth looked to Hub like a drowning man, and Hub seized on it. If Garth believed him, he'd be all right.

"Look." With the efficiency of a man far too used to such things, Hub tipped the body so that it rested flat on the ground, then pushed a flap of jacket back, revealing several sticks of dynamite. "He was going to set their explosives here. Wipe us all out, and some of them, too. You saved everybody. Even me."

"I…saved you?"

"Yeah."

"And you're okay?"

Hub smiled at the sudden Garth-ness that was in that face. The blank, numb fear and regret had melted, and suddenly he saw the older, dependable brother he had sworn to protect. He nodded in confirmation. "I'm okay."

"Then so am I."


	3. Given: Released from the Legion

"So, what now?"

"What do you mean, what now? We've been released. Captain said the British didn't want to be fighting alongside Shanghai-ed soldiers anymore. We can get out of here."

"Yeah, I know that. So how come you're not packing up?"

"Well, I was kinda thinking about staying on."

"You mean you're not going home? Hub, why?"

"Well, we're here. And there's a lot of good men out there dying that shouldn't, and innocent people getting hurt. And I aim to do something about it."

"But…"

"Garth, I gotta do this. You know that, I know you do."

"…Yeah. I know you do. Okay, Hub."

"Thanks. Wait a minute! Stop that! Put that back in your bag!"

"Why? If you're not leaving, neither am I."

"Garth, you got hit in the head when I wasn't lookin?"

"No, Hub, I mean it. If you're staying, so am I. I understand that you need this. I understand that they need you, everybody we fight for and everybody we fight beside. I understand that."

"So then…?"

"And you need me."

"I need you safe back home!"

"No, you need me right here. You don't trust nobody else on your back, and you fight better when you know you're protecting me. And you need somebody to tell you when you're wrong."

"Garth, this is your chance…"

"My chance to do the right thing. And I'm doin' it, Hub. I'm stayin'."

"…Thanks. Thanks, Garth."


	4. Letters: Garth and Hub write home

Their mother's flowery script sprawled across six pages, filled with words and words about everything imaginable. Details about Pearl's excitement to be nearly a teenager. Yarns about little Ralph's childish dreams to go fight with his brothers. Stories of their father's business endeavors and failures. Comments about the Texan weather, the neighbor family down the street, and how the dogs tracked mud through the house after swimming in the water hole. Pages and pages of it.

"How much time does she think we have to read between battles?" Hub sighed, pushing the papers towards Garth across the once-new trunk that was a makeshift table.

"She just worries about us, Hub. You know that." Garth adjusted his glasses and scanned the last few paragraphs. "Finish your letter to them yet?"

"Why I gotta write them when you're going to tell them everything anyway?" the wilder McCann asked, almost petulantly. If Hub McCann was capable of being petulant, that is.

"Because it's good for them to hear it from you," his brother replied patiently. They had this same discussion every time they got a letter from the States. Hub, who could handle himself against overwhelming odds, who would lower his sword for a man of honor and slaughter a criminal faster than he could blink, had never yet been defeated. But writing home remained a challenge somehow.

"What're you telling them, anyway?" Hub wanted to know.

"Here's what mine says," Garth replied, picking up his own neatly-written page. "Still doing fine. I took a small wound in the leg from the last battle, but Hub got me out in time and it wasn't more than a scratch. It's hotter than blazes out here, but we're used to that from Texas – a lot of the men here aren't as lucky. We're also both getting really to like it here in Africa, and I think we might stay on a while after the war. It's nothing like home, which is why Hub likes it so much, I think. But we'll see. A lot depends on how things turn out. In the meantime, tell Ralph that we're fighting bad guys so he doesn't have to, and tell Pearl to stay out of trouble. Ralph's not big enough to watch out for her for us yet. But, after some of the women we've seen, the things they've survived, well, tell Pearl she can be just as tough as she wants even after we come home. Maybe she won't need us to watch out for her after all. Anyway, we're on the move again soon, but I'm sure your next letters will find us. Somehow, they always do. All my love, Garth."

"Not bad," Hub commented. "Why did you put in that bit about Pearl, though?"

"You know as well as I do that women can be as strong as men. Especially out here."

"Yeah, I know that. But Pearl?"

"The girl's got some spirit, Hub."

"But she doesn't think. She just reacts. That's not strength, it's hotheadedness."

"She'll grow out of it," Garth said confidently. Then he switched the subject. "What's yours say?"

"My letter? Nothing much," Hub shrugged. "Still kicking, don't worry about us, and I'll look after Garth. Glad we're here fighting instead of letting somebody else do it. Keep Ralph away from the punks down the street – they're bad kids."

"That's it?"

"What else is there?" Hub asked reasonably. He passed the letter to his older brother across the trunk between their narrow bedrolls which doubled as chairs and carpets in their tent. Then Hub grinned and, like every good soldier given the chance, turned over to go to sleep. Garth carefully folded both their letters into an envelope and set it aside for the morning before blowing out the lantern to rest as well. He would have argued with Hub, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

After all, what else was there?


	5. Tame: Hub versus the safari business

"This is boring."

"Come on, Hub. A herd of stampeding elephants is not boring."

"Oh, sure it is. Did you see how those writers just screamed and ran? Like they'd never seen danger before."

"Well, maybe they haven't."

"Garth, you're missing the point here. We should be out doing something, you know? Not just babysitting a bunch of whiny pups!"

"What else would you want to be doing?"

"In the war we fought for a lot of things, good things. We saw…well, you know what we saw. I want to make sure those things aren't happening again. I want to make sure people who can't protect themselves are safe. There's too many bad people out there, hurting others too good-natured or afraid to stop it. And you want to be a damned tour-guide!"

"It's good money, and it wasn't an easy job to land, you know. Gotta live off something. Unless you want to go back to Texas, that is."

"Don't even joke about that. All right. I'll stick it out a few more weeks. But if it doesn't get interesting, I'm finding something else, all right? Something real."

"All right. If it doesn't get interesting, you go right wrongs and I'll stay here for a while. I'm not ready to get back out on that road yet. So I'll bankroll your quest for adventure, and you just stay alive. Okay with you Hub?"

"That sounds good to me."


	6. Contact: Hub and Garth keep track of one another

It was a deal, unbreakable as the sun, and they both knew it. If Hub was not going to stay with the safari job Garth had landed, he still had no intention of letting his brother wander into trouble without recourse. But, with the commissions to end the slave trade, "the most vile practice ever attempted by man" Hub called it, he would be on the move almost constantly. He would be in tents everywhere across the northern part of this wild continent, never sure from day to day which country would try to hold him or which foes would dare his sword. Just as he liked it. Even if it meant leaving his brother to his own devices for a while.

But leaving Garth was problematic, too. The elder McCann was tough, Hub knew, was a fighter at heart, and could handle a lot. After all, they had both survived the war, no matter with how much or how little grace. But he did not trust the world not to catch Garth unawares without him there to ensure his safety. Hub and Garth had plenty of enemies, and any one of them knew they could get to Hub through his brother. And by God, if they dared, Hub would come through hell or high water for him, and their enemies would die.

So they made a deal.

Hub took his commissions and went into the untamed lands where slavery dwelled, heart burning to undo such injustice. Garth remained with the safari company, leading long and short treks into the jungle, depending on what the paying customers could take, and gave those greenies a taste of reality.

And every second Tuesday of the month, without fail, Garth sent a letter through a contact in the military to a post in a city they both knew and trusted. Hub, as soon as his travels allowed, would pass through that city and retrieve the letter, posting one of his own in return. They were short, often only a few lines establishing that both McCanns still had their boots on, but it was enough. Even if Hub took weeks to reach their contact point, even if he failed to write more than "still fighting the damn slavers" to his brother, Garth never missed even one dispatch.

Because the day Hub arrived and found no note from his brother was the day the sky would fall and the moon explode. No commission would hold him any longer; vengeance would become his duty and his only aim. And then Hub would start on the true warpath with only two feelings in his blazing spirit as he set off in search: fury for whoever had dared lay a hand on Garth, and faith that his older brother would still be alive for him to find.


	7. Powerless: Garth and Hub after an injury

"Just hold still."

"I can't! What if…?"

"You know they'll handle it. Look, Hub, even you can't go riding into battle with your side all tore up. Just relax. It'll be over soon."

"Maybe we should go cover the…"

"No. The only thing you're covering is stitches with this bandage. Now quit your squirming!"

"Where'd you learn to be so good at this?"

"Remember that shot in the leg I got? And how you made me stay in the med tent for a week? Got bored."

"So what you're telling me is this is payback?"

"Close enough. Now just hold still. This part might hurt 'cause I've got to touch it."

"…"

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Sure about that?"

"Yep."

"I won't tell anybody, Hub."

"Won't tell anybody what?"

"Hub, you just bit your lip."

"Got it in the fight."

"Right."

"Garth?"

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor. Go check on the western line and tell me how they're doing."

"If you're trying to get me to leave so you can get up…"

"I won't. Promise. Swear on my honor I'll stay here. But I have to know. I might be able to tell 'em what to do if they're in a bind. And nobody but you will tell me the truth, 'cause they don't want to bother somebody hurt."

"You can't just lie here and be hurt for once, let somebody else handle it?"

"Nope."

"Figures."


	8. Valiant: "That mad American who fought like twenty men!"

Some things are inevitable. A sandstorm in the Sahara. A monsoon in the jungle. A storm in the sea. These are forces of nature, stronger than any man.

Except maybe one.

The locals called him "the mad American," when they did not speak his name. And when they spoke of Hub McCann, they spoke with respect. For if ever a man on any continent had resembled a sandstorm or a monsoon, this was that man. He swept evil from his path as easily as a flea, he restored justice where there had been none, and he protected the good with the same passion with which he dispatched those who harmed them.

They whispered of him, a hero, a warrior, a man born to a land far away who had the spirit of twenty. They were in awe of his skill and his courage and his fire. But never fear. No one of good conscience ever feared Hub McCann. For his fury burned only those deserving, never the innocent. He would ride into a war, straight into the heat of battle, and would rescue a child who had been caught in the fighting. He would duel any man who caused harm to another in his presence except in self-defense. He would kill if it meant the saving of a life.

As his reputation grew, so did the desire of many a would-be villain to either eliminate or avoid him, but neither seemed possible. At every turn, Hub was there, sword flashing, guns at the ready, eye steady. Any who challenged him lost, and any who fled him were found. The slave-traders bore the brunt of his anger, and Hub killed them without regret. He would not abide a man selling another into servitude, would not permit a man to so harm a woman. Justice was his strength, and he served it well.

No one had ever seen or heard of anything like it, nor were they likely to again. But Hub McCann was no hero, no heaven-sent angel of righteousness.

He was a man, only a man, who knew what virtue was. And he would live by its model or die in its work. Nothing more, and nothing less.


	9. Bachelor: Why Garth never found love

"Not everything in the world is meant for every person."

Sometimes, he was astonished at how deep Hub's soul could burn. Garth had watched his brother grow from a spark of life to a living wildfire, and never had he seen him glow as he did now at Jasmine's side. The woman who was as fiery as her husband had not tamed the younger McCann; rather, she ignited still more passion and power in his heart. Together, they shone like the sun, warming or burning everything in their path. And Garth rejoiced in it for his brother.

But Hub, who had never in his life been afraid of anything, seemed hesitant with Garth now. Hub, who had not once kept something from his older brother, who had been at Garth's side through every world-ending moment, was almost tentative when they sat for breakfast together in the shade of a colorful awning. He spoke circumspectly, laughing as he always had, avoiding the subject at hand. Not out of fear; Hub feared nothing, least of all his brother. This was out of pity.

"Look, Hub," Garth finally broke the inane conversation, "you're acting strange. What're you so worried about?" After taking a moment to think, Hub answered in the straightforward manner that had always been his trademark.

"I've got Jasmine and you don't have anybody. Don't you want this, too? Does it bother you?"

Garth, for his part, had known the question was coming, and had his answer ready. Of course, there were plenty of things that would go unsaid, but it didn't matter. Garth's heart was not quite built like Hub's – the love he needed, the partnership, he already had that in the younger sibling who even now worried about him when he should have been the happiest he had ever been in his life. That meant more to Garth than twenty women ever had. And besides, in Hub, Garth already had all the loyalty and fire he could ever ask for in another person, and the McCann brothers knew that they were in it for life together as surely as Hub and Jasmine. If he wanted companionship, he could find it easily enough, but love? No, he was content. Hub needed Jasmine, needed everything about her for every reason any man ever sought true love. Garth, of all the world, only needed his brother.

"Not everything in the world is meant for every person."

"I guess that's true," Hub replied.

And it was enough.


	10. Equals: Garth and Jasmine

It was the day after Hub asked Jasmine to marry him that she found Garth down by the shore, watching his brother ride. The Arabian princess had not gotten to know this quieter McCann well, her time having mostly been spent at Hub's side since she had lost her heart to the American. But when Hub spoke of something to do with Garth, she always noticed the way his tone would soften, his words become few, as if he could not assign them to his brother. It was not entirely dissimilar from how he spoke of his feelings towards her, not unlike what she saw caught in his eyes when he looked at her.

The young woman settled herself on a rock close to the man who would become her brother through marriage, and used the excuse of her beloved to watch Garth, to study his face as he sat silently. This McCann was unlike her own Hub, soft where her love was stern, innocent where her love was jaded. And not just in appearance, but in the way he carried himself, in the way he nodded to her when she joined him. They were like the sun and moon, bound forever, though eternally different, filling the places the other left vacant.

Hub rushed by, perfecting a technique with his brave steed and obviously taking a little pride in demonstrating his skills for them, and Jasmine caught the look on Garth's face as he turned to follow his brother with his eyes. There, in the elder man's expression, was everything she needed to know about him. Patient, understanding, utterly devoted to his brother, and yet wryly amused too, a more distant perspective on their world, a more practical understanding of their circumstances.

Without warning, Garth turned and met Jasmine's eyes unflinchingly, his bright ones suddenly focused and clear. He stared into her as if he could read her very thoughts, and she stared back, defiant, yet seeking still more in their silent exchange. Hub rode by again, but neither turned from the other to watch him. Neither broke the sudden tie that held them, even as that tie was himself oblivious.

And then they began to smile, together, suddenly cognizant of their silliness. Here they were, both suspicious of the other, not certain the other could be the answer to the one they knew so well. Neither willing to allow the other to risk harming the man who was now, endearingly, attempting something ridiculous just to draw their attention. But they saw what Hub had known at once, what they both ought to have trusted him to be right about from the start – that both Garth and Jasmine loved Hub, and he loved them both in his own way in return, and he knew and understood that they both had a place in his life.

As Hub rode up to the pair, panting from his work and smiling that smug smile that spoke of certainty and not a little justified conceit, they rose as one, Jasmine slipping her hand into the arm Garth offered. They moved to meet Hub on the shore, certain without speaking that here they belonged, both of them, beside that mad American, as the pillars upon which his all power rested. Both were needed and needed him, both were remembered by his heart, and both were intent on protecting the hidden, fragile nature of the valiant hero who had saved them each from themselves countless times.


	11. Ridiculous: Not all assassins are competent

"You've got to be kidding me."

Garth was trying hard not to grin at the bewildered look on his brother's face. Even Jasmine, normally so collected and serene, had eyes bright with merriment. But Hub was not laughing at all. Rather, he looked quite like a frustrated schoolmaster who has discovered a pupil cheating on a test.

"I'm not kidding! You do what I say now!" the assassin threatened, waving his pistol with one hand. In the other, he held out two small, white pills.

"Your whole plan is to force me to take these nitroglycerin tablets and then, what exactly?" Hub demanded, crossing his arms.

"You will fling yourself into that wall," the masked man ordered imperiously.

"And what in blazes is that supposed to do?" Hub scowled.

"I think he means for you to explode, Hub," Garth put in, clamping down on the chuckles that tried to escape.

Hub glared at his brother, his expression telling him quite clearly to go away as fast as possible, but Garth ignored it, being far too busy not giggling like a schoolboy. Jasmine made a tiny sound that might have been a snort if she hadn't caught it in her handkerchief. The assassin shifted the barrel of his pistol over to the pair who stood to one side and tried to look menacing, but it was too much. They both began to laugh in earnest.

"Oh, stop it," Hub grumbled at them irritably.

"Do not laugh!" the assassin shouted, his pistol shaking. "I will kill you both if he does not obey me. Now take these pills and throw yourself into this wall and so earn me my bounty!"

"Had enough fun yet?" Hub called over his shoulder. Garth, tears in his eyes from restrained hilarity, found he couldn't even speak.

"I suppose we ought to end his suspense," Jasmine said, collecting herself with a visible effort. Then, with the confidence many soldiers could not manage in the face of an enemy, she moved forward, directly towards the assassin. Garth moved to take a step after her, but a wink from Hub told him to remain, and watch. And to quit laughing, which he ignored.

"Sir," she addressed the assassin in a musical voice, "I'm afraid your plan is quite foolish. Your pills will not make anyone explode, no matter how hard they run into something." She was quite near him now, and his eyes grew wider at her approach.

"Stay back!"

"Also," she said sweetly, drawing up beside him, "your pistol is quite impotent." With a look that was a mix of pity and amusement, she easily relieved his shaking, cold fingers of the weapon, expertly spinning the chamber to demonstrate that it lacked even one bullet.

"I…I…" the would-be assassin stammered, uselessly.

"Oh, just get out of here," Hub batted at the hand that was still holding the nitroglycerin tablets. "Tell you what – we won't tell anyone you tried this, and you don't try to kill anybody again. Fair?"

The masked man hesitated for a moment. Hub rolled his eyes and drew his own pistol, shooting expertly to strike the ground between the man's feet. The sound of the shot had scarcely faded before the man had turned pale and fled. Garth began to laugh again, Jasmine sighed and shook her head and Hub glowered.

"Sending assassins is one thing, but sending morons to kill me is just plain insulting," he grumbled. He felt his honor had been questioned, and he couldn't even in good conscience take it out on the undeserving hand that had been not even close to his throat.

It took two days before Hub was completely cheered up, and only then when the sultan sent a full dozen trained men after him instead.


	12. Joy: Blended spirits

If the princess had been holding the Evening Star in her hands, she could not have carried it with more beauty and grace and strength and serenity as she did her own unborn child. From the day it was known that the princess was expecting her firstborn, all the city had been in an uproar. All but three.

Hub, fierce and proud and strong and all fire and justice, blazed with ever more power and confidence and drive. He had been radiant like a comet before; now he burned as they very sun. All his passion, all his courage, all of it was heightened, intensified. If asked, he would have explained that, with a child of his own sleeping within the soul of the woman he loved, he now had an ever-greater duty to be all he held within. This child, regardless of gender, would grow up in a world that was safe, that was alive with honor and justice, that was defined by the hands that dared to craft it. Hub had been "that mad American who fought like 20 men" before he met Jasmine, and he was that tenfold after – now he would be a legend, a god among men, to ensure that the heir to his blood would be protected, and would one day stand beside a father filled with pride to choose a path of their own making in that carved out place of honor.

Jasmine, burning with her own light, shone like the moon itself. Her kindness was as it had always been, and yet she was gentler, too, as though every word she spoke was to the precious child within, every touch, every glance, every move was with that child's eyes before her. Every person became her darling, every moment a lullaby she sang to that little one. She was no less courageous or compelling herself, but now it was pronounced, and her selflessness was overpowering. She hung suspended at Hub's side, the bringer of water to his newly-forged world. In her shadow, a garden, an Eden would grow from the earth her husband built with the force of his own heart, and hers would nourish it to beauty and flourishing life.

And Garth, hidden in the shadows of them both, was simply overjoyed. If he could design, with all the world to choose from, two souls to create a new one, two lovers suited to hold that child, he could not have done better than Hub and Jasmine. Together, they had been blessed with the greatest joy any person could know, and there was no one less deserving than they in his opinion. So while Hub and Jasmine made their great and small contributions to the world in advance of their child, Garth watched, and assisted them both, and waited with more excitement than he'd ever known to meet the tiny person who could hold the overflowing spirit of the couple.


	13. Afterlife: Garth looks after Hub

Pain can take so many forms.

Sometimes it manifests as something cold and biting, slowly gnawing at resistance and steadily crumbling everything it touches, leaving only frozen dust behind.

Sometimes it attacks with violent fury, ripping and tearing and shredding like a wild beast hungry for blood and suffering, and both are ample in its wake.

Sometimes it strikes silently, its effects unheeded and unfelt even as it brings death in that trance-like, singular shock.

And sometimes a man is unfortunate enough to experience all three at once.

Never in a thousand lifetimes would Garth have expected to see his brother brought so low as this. Hub was indomitable, unbreakable, strong as the sea and just as boundless. Nothing, nothing could be so great as to reduce him to this. Nothing but one beautiful and terrible truth of life: it ends.

The news that Jasmine had died, and her child with her, had threatened at first to break Hub's mind, then his spirit. The first moments of the news delivered on the heels of such excitement and joy at the impending birth were a vague memory for both McCanns. What Garth did remember was watching Hub's face turn from its ruddy light and health to a mask of death, pale and cold, the fire in his eyes go out. He remembered stumbling to his feet and gripping Hub's shoulder, feeling that his younger brother was somehow suddenly hollow, his bones inexplicably brittle.

Then a howl of unspeakable pain and sorrow and loss tore itself from Hub's throat and all who heard it flinched or ran in fear. All but Garth. Steady and true, he remained at Hub's side as the agony took hold. He endured the horrors of loss, became the vent for Hub's anger and pain, handled all the jagged pieces of life that now seemed so meaningless. Days, weeks, months, they were all one long hurricane, tearing everything that had ever been, everything that had ever mattered, down to the ground and leaving nothing behind.

Except Garth. Because no storm was going to shake him from Hub's side. No pain or suffering would keep him from doing whatever was humanly possible, and some things that probably shouldn't have been, to keep Hub alive and whole. Nothing was going to let Garth fail to keep Hub at his side, doing what they both had always known they must do in this world.

This was, without a doubt, as bad as it could ever get for Hub. This was the one battle he had never known he could lose, and now that he had, he did not now how to survive. He didn't even care to try.

But Garth did. Because this time, Garth was going to save his brother from the horror as he had been saved so many times by Hub. Whatever it took, Garth would save him. Or they would both die trying.


	14. Nightmare: Garth wakes Hub after sleepwalking

"What in the hell are you doin'?"

"You were sleepwalking, Hub! I was just trying to wake you before you killed somebody."

"Sleep-walking?"

"Sleep-fighting is more like it."

"Serves you right for startling me that bad. Where'd I get you?"

"Just a slug on the jaw. Nothing serious."

"Good."

"Hub?"

"What now?"

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Nothing."

"Don't you try to hide it from me. I know you too well. Before you near took my head off, you were trying to swordfight with the wind. Reliving your glory days?"

"Is that what you think?"

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"...If you have to know, I was protecting her. Saving her this time."

"Hub, you couldn't have saved her. It wasn't something you could fight."

"I know. But I'd have liked to try. Anything to keep her from..."

"Come on. Let's get back inside."

"Sure."

"You dream of her every night, don't you?"

"Always have, since the first time I saw her."

"Try not to wander off next time, okay?"

"You knew I was dreaming of her, didn't you? You knew all along."

"I knew."

"How could you be so sure?"

"Because Hub, there's nothing else that powerful in your mind as to make you crazy like you were out there tonight. Nothing else makes you get lost that way."

"Thanks, then."

"For what?"

"Leading me back."


	15. Youth: The beginning of Hub's speech

"Talk to them."

Hub turned to where Garth had appeared at his elbow. It felt strange to see his brother once again donning the uniform of the Legion, though it felt entirely natural to him. Hub had been certain Garth would have gone back to his safaris, given his older brother's general dislike of the military lifestyle, and leave only himself to return to duty. But then again, Garth had not left Hub's side since the time of trouble, a year ago when his life had seemed to end with the death of Jasmine. Come to think of it, he probably would never leave his side again. Where Hub went, Garth seemed intent to follow.

"Why?" Hub asked, looking back over the gathering soldiers. Dozens of young men preparing themselves for their first real battle milled below.

"Because they're just kids, Hub. Boys. And they're scared."

"They got a right to be," Hub pointed out reasonably. "This life ain't for the weak."

"So go talk to them. They've all heard the stories about you. They know what you've done, the odds you've beaten. They know you started as young as they are now. Help them." Garth's eyes, which generally looked so wide and kind and gentle, were narrower now, focused and serious. "Be to them what you were to me back then. Give them the strength to survive what's coming."

"All right, all right," Hub sighed. He could never resist something his brother was that set on, no matter how much he disliked it. As he headed down from the walkway above and into the center of the room, he realized that the reason he was sane, still breathing after everything, was because Garth had wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything before. His older brother had been set on Hub surviving, and here he was. That was a lot of power Garth had, Hub realized, power he rarely but very deliberately invoked.

"Listen up!" he shouted, drawing an immediate silence. He scanned the faces of the new recruits as they quieted and gathered around him. By God, Garth was right. These were boys, near-children, either scared to death or, even worse, excited by the prospect of what they thought was some sort of adventure. They didn't know anything at all about war, what they would be called on to do, what being a man was really about. Hub found himself wanting to instill not just courage in the frightened ones, but sense in the others.

As he reached into his heart for the words that he knew would be there, he found a waterfall begin to spill out. Hub never knew what he said in the next blurry minutes, but as those fearful eyes grew calm, the shining faces dour, he understood all at once that he was not rallying his troops for battle, not dispersing foolish dreams of glory.

He was laying a foundation of wisdom upon which maturity would grow, watering these fertile souls with what would be their inheritance, their adulthood. They were boys now, but soon they would be men, and by God, he would see to it.


	16. Homestead: House-hunting in Texas

"Hub, this is what retired people do: they settle down. You don't want to settle down in a cardboard box."

"Slept in worse a hundred times. So've you."

"Do you have any idea how much…stuff we have? Stuff we can't just leave in a box?"

"Who cares? I thought that's what banks were for."

"I thought you didn't trust banks not to run off with your money."

"I don't."

"Then we need a place somewhere to keep it in, Hub. Look, we'll find a big old house, one with lots of land, and you can hunt and fish and kick every neighbor-boy off your property until you turn blue in the face, okay?"

"No neighbors. I don't want people. And no relatives. And no telephone. We gotta be harder to find than shade in the Sahara."

"Whatever you say."

"None of that technology nonsense. I don't want to forget the difference between what's real and what's a story out of some kid's imagination."

"Fine with me."

"And you gotta find it all on your own. I ain't helping you this time, Garth."

"I know. You just live in your box and I'll come get you when I find a place."

"It'll never be home you know. Home's gone. Won't be a home again until I'm dead."

"I know. But we're still here, so we'll just find a place to wait it out, all right?"

"…All right."


	17. Kin: Mae's letters to Walter

After a while, they started regretting that Walter was the one to check the mail each day. At first, it had seemed a useful sort of chore for the boy, giving him a reason to walk and run, and saving them the trip to the mailbox, which they only made once a week anyway. Who was there to send them something they cared to read anyway?

But Walter did get mail periodically, from his mother. Mail he read privately and threw away before vanishing for hours, returning to the house with a smudged face and red eyes. After the second such episode, Garth started retrieving those letters from the trash for himself; Hub argued that the boy needed privacy, but his brother pointed out that, more than privacy, Walter needed their help. He needed someone to be a grown-up so he didn't have to pretend anymore.

While the boy had been staying for the summer, the letters had been bold, outrageous lies that quietly infuriated both men. Just as Walter was quick to notice the postage from Las Vegas, they were able to pick even more lies from the narratives, until every word seemed a host of untruths. The blithe and thoughtless manner in which one wild statement was directly contradicted by another, even within the same letter, spoke of a mother not even concerned with these few dispatches to her son. The only, only consistent theme that had any truth to it was her repeated questions about where their money was hidden and if Walter had found it yet.

When Mae decided to leave her boy with Hub and Garth permanently before returning to Las Vegas with Stan, she eventually began writing him again, but the letters changed. No longer did they mention the money, for even Mae was wise enough to know that it was now beyond her grasp, but they continued to be packs of lies and fabrication. However, instead of covering up a Las Vegas job with court-reporting school, now she was covering up her life with Stan. Every line about being happily married, about setting up house, nearly gushed with unspoken pain and helplessness. Mae was not a subtle creature, and her letters were a living testament to her ill-treatment and unhappiness. And Walter saw through to the truth that had overcome and beaten her. As Stan had overcome and beaten them both. It was a chilling reminder of the life her son had narrowly avoided for himself.

But Walter did not see his mother's suffering and do nothing. His own sense of justice, steadily honed and strengthened by Hub and Garth, could not have allowed it. He did everything his young heart could think of, and then everything his uncles could suggest, and then everything a local church group recommended, though it did no good. Every offer of help was rebuffed, every hint of empowerment rejected, every scrap of outreach cast back at them – both Walter's own and that of the McCann brothers. Like so many poor, frightened women before her, Mae would not leave the hell she had built for herself, and no amount of encouragement or assistance would budge her. It broke Walter's gentle heart to see, through the lines of her falsely cheerful letters, his mother broken and trapped in a world of her own foolish making.

In time, Walter no longer ran away from his uncles when the letters arrived, instead reading them quietly aloud on the porch at sunset. His outrage, and theirs, faded over the months and years, replaced by a reluctant regret. Mae's story was a common one, a dreadful one, and there seemed nothing they could do but witness it through her lies. They shared it together, all three of them, and shared their pain as well.

For she had once been family, even if she was less so now, and the three men ached for her, each in their own way: Walter keenly hurt by the suffering of his mother, Hub justifiably angry both at her and on her behalf, and Garth quietly sympathetic. But it was Mae herself who rejected them, not the other way around, and for as long as she was unwilling kin, lying with every stroke of a pen and refusing to acknowledge the reality of herself or her life to those who would have saved her, they were powerless.

So they did the only thing they could – they read her letters, Walter wrote his polite replies, and together they waited for the inevitable day a note would come from a different hand to tell them that Mae's choices, and her troubles, were forever over.


	18. Infinite: Hub's pain after all this time

"Nice sunset."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Hub, you say that every year, but every year you eventually do. Can't we just skip past all that stuff this time?"

"Do you think I've forgotten a single day since it happened? Do you think I don't feel this day come around every year like a knife in my gut? What makes you think I want to talk about it when I don't even want it to happen?"

"I know you don't want to talk. But you need to. You always do."

"…"

"Fifty years is a long time to mourn, Hub. A long time."

"You're telling me."

"So tell me."

"What's to tell? It's gone and over. Over until that damn kid lets go of me and I can go find what I lost."

"Walter cares about you, about both of us. You can't blame him for wanting you to live."

"No, I guess not."

"Kid's practically a son to us now, you know. Which is why it hurts so much, seeing him and wondering. You know that, Hub."

"Damnit, Garth, I don't wanna hear about it!"

"I know."

"Strongest woman I've ever met anywhere, then or now. Any continent, any country. What the hell was the point of being so strong if something like that could kill her? I took wounds in battle that should have had my poor hide. Why her?"

"Not her fault, Hub."

"No. Never her fault. Never."

"…Feel any better yet?"

"Ain't felt better for fifty years. That isn't going to change, Garth."

"Walter's changing you anyway."

"He's a good kid. I don't know about a son, though. I already lost…"

"I know."

"You never told me if it was a boy or a girl."

"You didn't want to know."

"I still don't."

"True love never dies, Hub. You taught me that."

"You're damn right it doesn't. And it never, ever will."


	19. Quiet: Garth and Walter

"Thanks, Uncle Garth," Walter smiled. The sweat rolling off his brow spoke more than his words of how grateful he was for the glass of water he'd been handed. His hands were brown with dirt, and the knees of his slacks were torn again, but he didn't seem to mind. He gulped the water gratefully.

"You're welcome," Garth replied, taking the hoe from the boy's hand and digging it into the warm soil while Walter took a break. As he carefully continued the good work already done this afternoon, he watched the boy out of the corner of his eye. Walter had already downed the water and was taking the moment to stretch his shoulders – properly, Garth noticed.

"Too much out here?" he asked.

"Nah, I'm used to it." Walter flashed that bright grin and Garth had to smile back. Without saying a word, they had said many things in the space of a few instants. The boy had always seemed to understand Garth, the same way Hub did, maybe. They weren't really talking about gardening, or working in the sun, not exactly. They were talking about Walter's living with his two old bachelor uncles, and the oddness of his life since coming here. Every now and again, Garth had to be sure for himself that Walter was happy with them, was content with the strangeness of their quirky ways and gruff exteriors.

"Glad to hear it," he replied easily, nodding in approval as the boy picked up the other hoe and joined him at the work. And he knew without looking up that Walter heard more than "Keep up the good work in the garden." He knew the boy could hear that he was pleased the boy was there with them, and that it made him happy that Walter seemed to want to stay with them another day, another month, another summer, another year.

Really, for all their shared laughter, for all the stories Garth told Walter over the deep, warm nights, for all the times they rolled their eyes in secret at Hub's stubbornness, there were many things neither could say. Garth had had to unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth to utter even the simple "Welcome home" when the boy had decided to stay – it was the most he knew how to say. But it was all right. Because Walter heard him anyway.

"Time to go in and eat something," Garth said after a while, setting the hoe in its place alongside the tree at the edge of the garden. Walter followed him wordlessly, sweating still, and smiling broadly.

And when they walked into the house, Garth's large hand on Walter's developing shoulders, when they washed up in silence and sat down to a simple meal, Hub finally joining them from wherever he'd been, they still didn't say anything. There was no need to express what Garth meant, no need for Walter to tell his uncle what being together in the garden told him about his place in the old man's heart.

They knew. With a smile and a nod and an awkward pat, they knew. As they'd known from his second day here, as they would know for every day on, Walter and Garth knew. They were family. And blood doesn't need paltry words to flow strong.


	20. Manhood: The day Walter moved out on his own

"Well, I guess this is it," Walter said, holding his head high even as he felt a tiny tremor skip through his chest.

"Yup, guess so," Hub nodded.

"You got everything?" Garth asked, tipping his head towards the packed car. It was surprising how much, and yet how little in the way of things Walter had acquired over the years.

"I think so." His voice, thank goodness no longer squeaky with adolescence, was even and sure, just as he had learned from the two men before him. Change must be met, faced, and conquered, all with courage and tranquility and open eyes. Walter knew it well.

"Sure you don't want us to come and help you move in?"

"Garth, leave the man be. He decided it was time, he did this all on his own – he can handle it." Hub's tone was a step down from its usual decisive force, and it caught a bit on the word "man."

Garth allowed himself a small smile as he looked between Hub and Walter. The boy had truly grown up well, taking after both of them in certain ways, and yet forging his path bravely in ways that were entirely his own. For ten years, he had invaded their house and eaten their food and warmed and softened their days. Now he was ready to be on his own, live in his own place, find his own road. Ready, but still not quite willing. As it should be with a man leaving the home he had come to love.

"I'll be fine – nothing's too heavy for me," Walter flashed a grin that made him look young again, his round face opening to that honest smile that still had an effect on his uncles. "And since the furniture's already there, it's mostly just my suitcases."

"Well, all right then," Garth conceded the point. "You better get going; it's getting on to evening now. Don't want to move in the dark."

"It's only an hour away – I'll make it." Still Walter's shoulders were straight, and he seemed to be taking this step with great dignity, even though a wetness flashed momentarily in his eyes.

"Now listen," Hub said, his voice again a touch husky. "If you need anything, you're on your own, right? If you want something..."

"Get it yourself or, better yet, do without," Walter finished the old line. He had heard it a lot growing up here besides that fateful first night, as it was a staple of Hub's outlook on life.

"I think we might need to add a rule to that, though, now that things are different," Garth said suddenly. As the other two turned to look at him, he spoke, as he always had, saying the things Hub and Walter wanted said, but could not voice to each other. "By all means, get it yourself or do without. But if you're looking to do without something important, something you really need, you come do chores for us for a while, and we'll see what we can do. You'll have to earn it in sweat, of course. Nothing for nothing and all that. All right?"

Some of the tightness in Hub's face relaxed as he saw what his brother was doing. Both McCanns had worried somewhat about Walter's chosen career, one neither viewed as particularly lucrative, and neither wanted him to struggle when they had so much money left to spare, more than they could ever want or need. But actually giving it to him was out of the question. He could, however work for it.

"All right," Walter grinned, his face sunny as the Texas sun. "In that case, I'll be down next Sunday to clean out the barn and cook you dinner, just to make sure you don't do without either. I think the rule should work both ways now."

"So it does, my boy. So it does."


	21. Wishes: Garth makes extra provisions for the will

"I still think this is pointless."

"I know you do, but if you never pay attention to this sort of thing, you're going to have to trust me."

"I want to do things my way."

"Fine, do them your way. But we're also going to do them my way, just in case."

"Why? What's wrong with my note? Simple, true, straightforward. What else is there?"

"Well, for one thing, witnesses. And for another, that note will never hold up in court. And you know they'll drag him there, Hub. You know they will."

"Damned relatives. I can't stand them as will fight him on this, even after everything. What sort of world is this, anyway? Man can't even be permitted to his own last wishes or to the peace of mourning."

"Yup. That's why we're going to do it properly. Make sure he's protected, make sure they don't get a dime of it."

"All right, all right, I'll do it. But I'm still leaving my note, when it's time."

"That's fine. I'll put it with the key to the bank box."

"I thought you didn't trust banks, Garth."

"I do. You don't. But this is for Walter, not you or me."

"Oh."

"Anything else you wanna put in the box besides the legal stuff?"

"No. The only other thing of value that'll fit he already has."

"Her picture?"

"That."

"Okay. So we'll just go in, make out the papers tomorrow, lock them up in the bank, and then we'll be ready. You can write whatever you damn well please for whenever the time comes, and we can both go knowing Walter'll be all right. Deal?"

"Deal."


	22. Survival: Hub and Walter

Hub had never quite forgiven Walter for the then-boy's intrusion into their lives one dusty summer. He had never quite forgotten that the only reason his heart still stubbornly beat was because that boy had eyes that demanded something he could not quite deny. He had never learned to accept that the boy actually wanted him for an uncle – as if he knew how to be an uncle anyway! – and he couldn't see it now. Even with the boy grown up, even with him living elsewhere and making his own way in his own pair of boots, he still looked at Walter and saw a scrawny kid with gumption and an odd, innocent sincerity that he just couldn't grasp.

For a while, Hub had hated Walter that summer. When he'd agree to stick around to give the boy the speech he'd need, he'd hated it. If he were a spiteful man, he'd have gone back on the promise within the day, just to prove that no person could chain him to life when his heart had long-since died. But he was honorable, and intent on keeping the promise, not just in word, but in deed. And so Hub found himself striving to be an uncle, a real uncle to the boy.

It had sustained him, and without his ever knowing it, Hub had opened a part of his withered heart he'd shut off long ago, a part he'd only allowed Garth to enter since he'd lost her. That scrawny boy wormed his way in, until Hub couldn't quite tell how he had been able to stand the silence of the evenings without the impertinent questions and eager observations from the other end of the porch. He didn't like the process, mind, but he accepted it. He'd given his word to live, to be an uncle, and he would keep it. Besides, he knew somehow that Jasmine would have liked Walter, and if making him smile would have made her smile, he strove all the more to find it in himself to do it.

But now the boy was a man, though forever a boy in Hub's mind anyway. And a fine one at that, with the same courage and integrity he himself had admired in countless young men the world over. Walter was no warrior, not like his uncles, but he had a fire of his own, and a will, and he was not afraid to use either when called upon. It was not quite an apt legacy for a war-torn hero; it was a much-improved one in Hub's estimation. For in the blood they'd left in their wake across the world, instead peace came in the form of that stubborn, foolish boy.

It was only after the boy left to be on his own that Hub understood what Garth had probably known all along, what Walter had guessed when he sauntered so proudly up the driveway that summer so long before – that this bond, this odd family, was as much needed by his aching heart as his brother was, as the lost Jasmine had been. Hub had been stronger and braver for his brother, moreso for Jasmine, and now, at the close of his days, he had once more been spurred to excellence by another human being. But this one was not in need of his protection and certainty as Garth had been, nor his love and honor as Jasmine had been. This boy had been in need of his integrity, his strength, and his stalwart loyalty. And, if Hub really thought about it, he was pretty sure that Walter had learned to thrive in his shadow, just as he'd been learning to survive with the boy beside him.

The promise they had forged many summer nights ago was waning, though, not because Hub's devotion to the boy was any less, but because it was simply time. He had finally taught the boy all he could about life, courage, love, and honor. He had shown Walter a warrior's code and a man's duty, and the boy had absorbed both like a sponge. There was but one lesson left to teach, a painful one, but one without which Walter would forever be incomplete, as Hub was incomplete now. And that was a fate to which he would never, ever, no matter what, condemn that boy he loved so well.

It was time to teach him how to survive death, and find life in the ashes.


	23. Dawn: The fateful morning

"Today's the day."

The words were quiet and certain, spoken with a voice that had known wisdom, and love, beyond measure. Hub at his best.

"You sure?" Garth asked, looking up nonchalantly through the pale dawn light of an unremarkable day. Well, previously unremarkable day; now it was turning out to be rather out of the ordinary. Garth knew exactly what his brother was saying. He wasn't too surprised – Hub had been ready for a long, long time. The plane had been done for more than two years, after all, just sitting under a tarp next to the barn.

"Yep. Said goodbye to the boy yesterday." Hub sat down at the table and faced his brother squarely.

"We had lunch with him in town and came home. You didn't say goodbye, not that kind of goodbye," Garth returned.

"What other kind is there?"

"Good point." Garth looked at his brother carefully, reading every line on his face. He had been watching Hub since the boy had been born, and he knew that his mind was made up this time. Made up and unshakeable, no matter what he said. "All right then."

"You don't have to."

"To what?"

"Come with me." Something flickered in Hub's eyes, something suddenly so soft and bright as to almost coax tears from Garth's old eyes. But they were both beyond tears now. "You don't have to."

"Yes I do. I always did have to." No greater truth had he ever spoken than that.

"What about the boy? He might need you," Hub said, the first hint of regret shading his voice.

"Might need you too. Ain't stopping you," Garth shrugged.

"Nah. He's a man now, a good man. He can take it."

"So he can." A few moments of silence were only interrupted by the wind rushing through the cornfield that they had labored at year after year. So much for that.

"Well, all right then. I'm going to go clean her off and then we'll get going. If you're not in that back seat when I take off, you ain't coming. Got it?" Hub rose, his body moving with more than a few painful jolts. He was a very far cry from the man he had once been, and yet he was at the same time the best man he had ever been.

"I'll be there." Garth met his brother's eyes unflinchingly, then nodded. Hub left the kitchen for the last time, trusting that his older brother would handle the last odds and ends; he always had. As Garth set the dishes in the sink, not bothering to wash them – who washes dishes when they aren't coming back to use them? – he took one look out the window at the road. The road they had driven down so many times. The road a boy had walked with head held high, reinventing their lives with every step. The road that ended, as it always had for Garth, where Hub put his feet. If an extra drop splashed in the sink from eyes that should have been too old for tears, it hardly mattered. It would be soon dry and gone in the day's hot sun. And free.

Garth drew a paper from one of his many corners and set it on the table under an old oil lamp. Hub had written it the day he had finished the plane, and it, like its counterpart, had simply been waiting for the proper moment. Next to it went the key to the box with everything else.

"Sorry, Walter. Time for two old coots to leave this world to you. Keep your boots on, kid."

Without a second thought, he turned, and followed wherever Hub had gone.


	24. Unending: Walter's continuation of Garth and Hub and their story

"Do you like it up here?"

"Yeah. It's high and far away like a tree-house I read about in a book once. And I like looking out the window. It's way different from the city. And it looks like the clouds go on forever up there."

"They do. The sky only pretends to touch the ground out near the horizon, only pretends to connect to the fields and grasses. But really, the clouds are flying, and no amount of time or distance can ever bring them down."

"How come there's a big hole in the barn, though?"

"Well…some holes don't need to be patched up, you know. Some holes just stay for a while."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Your dad said you like corn, right? Want some for dinner?"

"Sure!"

"You'll have to help me get it out of the garden, then."

"What, like pick it off the tree?"

"Not a tree. A stalk. Haven't you ever seen a cornstalk before?"

"Nah. Food in the city comes from the store. Everybody knows that."

"Oh, right. Of course. Well, in your world, everybody flies anywhere they want in private planes, too. Here, we walk. Or ride in that."

"That beat up old truck down there? Does it even work?"

"It sure does."

"Wow. This place is weird. But neat."

"That's what I thought, too, when I came to live here for the summer."

"Was that when you met the two men from my grandfather's stories?"

"Sure was. And I'll make you a deal for the time you're here before you go back to your dad's. You tell me the stories your grandfather told you, and I'll tell you the ones my uncles told me."

"But they're the same stories."

"I'm not so sure about that."

"How come?"

"Because I think what your grandfather saw, maybe what everybody saw, was like the horizon out there. That eventually the clouds and sky melt into the world and become a part of it. But if you asked the clouds themselves, they'd tell you that they never touch ground, that they don't live by any definitions or limits, that they're really free, and just let us all think they can be nailed down."

"So…you're saying your uncles can't be nailed down?"

"Exactly. Like I told you when I first met you and your dad, they really lived. And they didn't live on the ground. They lived in the sky, free and wild."

"Wow. I want to live like that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But I don't know how."

"Come on downstairs. Pick some corn with me. And I'll start to tell you the story about those honest and brave men, and the princess named Jasmine, and then a scrawny kid and an old lion and the weirdest family you ever heard of, and we'll see if you figure it out along the way. What I learned when I was a little older than you was that, if you listen to those stories long enough, you kind of find your way to their sky on your own."

"Okay. Thanks, Uncle Walter."

"You're welcome, kiddo."


End file.
